


Sated

by DictionaryWrites



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: (EDs as in 'jonathan sims is an unwillingly vegan cat'), Affection, Asexual Character, Caretaking, Cis Jonathan Sims, Cis Martin Blackwood, Complicated Relationships, Eating, Eating Disorders, Intimacy, Kissing, M/M, Non-Sexual Intimacy, POV Martin Blackwood, Power Dynamics, Size Difference, Skin Hunger, Stream of Consciousness, Teasing, The Hunt (The Magnus Archives) - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-05
Updated: 2019-12-05
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:52:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21676183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DictionaryWrites/pseuds/DictionaryWrites
Summary: Set pre-160, after they're settled into the cottage together.Jon looks...hungry. Martin can't stand it.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 94
Kudos: 1090
Collections: tma fics





	Sated

**Author's Note:**

> CWs for discussions of weight and canonical eating problems (Tumblr user @obsle has compared it to getting your cat to keep a vegan diet, when it comes to Daisy and Jon, which tracks for me); mentions of animal death (pet cat getting hit by a car), only a few lines).

Jon had been skinny when Martin had met him. Well, not— Was skinny the right word? He’d been small, that much was certain, except he was really only small in comparison to Martin and to Tim, because when Martin saw him out in the street, around other people, he did seem a little bigger than the average, but he was skinny. Square and angular, and sort of thin, with the bony bits of him seeming exaggeratedly bony, but not so skinny that you noticed it on the parts of him that were meant to be meaty – his forearms, his legs, his chest.

Meaty.

Bad choice of words. Bad choice of words, now, now that the actual meat on his body was pockmarked over the arms and the hands where the worms had burrowed in, and when the burn covered shiny-slick up his left hand, and there was a ragged cut at his neck, too, one that only showed when he let his shirt get unbuttoned…

Skinny was the wrong word, and little didn’t seem right either, when Martin really _looked_ at him, but when you weren’t looking at Jon, it was easy to think of him as little. He just had that sort of personality, except that maybe it wasn’t his personality, and maybe he’d used to seem bigger, before he started—

That isn’t a helpful train of thought, and it makes Martin feel a bit sick.

He’s watching Jon in the little cottage, his arms crossed tightly over his chest, his knees drawn partly up to his chest, and he’s managed to cram himself onto one of the windowsills like a cat. Folded up like this, he looks like he’d be bigger, once you unfolded him, and Martin again gets the weird, uncanny sensation that Jon should be bigger in his mind than he is, and he doesn’t like it. Doesn’t like the idea that when he isn’t looking, whatever magic there is might make Jon fade away to nothing, might make Martin forget.

The cottage is small. It’s only three rooms – the living room and kitchen, which is sparsely furnished with an electric fireplace, some dressers, and a few bookshelves which are mercifully crammed full of books; the bedroom, which has one queen-sized bed with what feels like a fifty-year-old mattress, and two chests of drawers which had at least been full of blankets; and the bathroom, which has a bath but no shower, and is so small, with a slightly slanted roof, that Martin has to bend his head slightly if he wants to use the sink. The books on the shelves are varied, and Jonathan had wryly commented as they’d started clearing all the dust off everything that she’d just bought some boxes from a car boot sale to fill them, so that they would be harder to move.

There’s ammunition and weapons behind them, the bookshelves, buried in the wall. Jon had known that when they’d come in, and then gone sort of quiet, like he felt guilty, but it wasn’t as though it was his fault, just for knowing.

There are a lot of blankets, at least, although honestly, Martin hadn’t expected the cottage to hold the heat as well as it does, but it really does – the windows are thickly glazed, with that cross-hatching that some windows have (“It means if someone shoots through it, it won’t shatter too explosively.” More guilty silence.), and the walls are tightly insulated, the roof not seeming to let out too much heat. There’s an attic you can get into from the outside, but Jon had put his hand on Martin’s and said quietly that he didn’t want to go up there, and that he didn’t want Martin to go up there either.

Martin had been distracted by how cold Jon’s hand was, and immediately clasped it in his own to try to warm it up. Jon had gone quiet then, too, but he couldn’t really tell at the time if it was guilty or not. He still couldn’t.

Martin has a copy of Ballantyne’s _The Coral Island_ in his lap, but it’s very old and the font is very small, and when he looks at the etchings of the ocean and the boats, he thinks of Peter Lukas, and it makes him feel sad, and lonely, and sort of yearny, in a way he doesn’t really like, and when he feels like that he doesn’t much want to go for a walk around the area.

Jon doesn’t seem that small, when they’re in bed together. He folds out instead of inward, and although he doesn’t sprawl – Martin doesn’t think Jon is capable of sprawling, even if he’s trying to – he sort of spreads out a bit more, a bit longer. Martin can tell he isn’t used to sharing a bed with someone, but that he isn’t self-conscious enough to apologise if he brushes Martin accidentally, and the night before, Martin had woken up with his nose pressed into Jon’s black-and-grey hair, Jon’s stubble scratching at Martin’s neck, and he’d been amazed at how much his head had spun with it, when he was only just awake. He likes… Once they start touching, it’s so easy to touch one another all over, but when the gap between them is like this, it’s hard to bridge it, to start with.

It’s easier to touch Jon than he expected, though. When he fantasied about it, when he first started having a crush, he’d always thought it would be hard to touch him – he used to imagine that Jon would take charge, that he’d maybe tie Martin down and take control, or tell Martin when and where he was allowed to touch.

That was before he knew Jon wasn’t really interested in sex, of course. He wonders if it’s bad to think about having sex with someone you know isn’t interested.

“I’m sorry,” Martin says.

Jon glances at him. He looks tired, and thin – thinner than he used to, definitely, and not just because of the new Archivist thing. Martin is certain of that, _certain_, because when Jon had sat up this morning it was easy for Martin to _see_ that he was missing two ribs, because he could count them all easily, and no one’s thighs should be as thin as Jon’s are. Jon doesn’t look _emaciated_, not like Daisy had, _does, does,_ but then she mustn’t look quite the same now, it’s been weeks—

“What?” Jon asks softly.

“I don’t mind getting you cigarettes,” Martin says. “Just— I didn’t mean, I didn’t want to, um, to stop you, just that I don’t like the… but it would be fine if you smoked them outside. I can get you some.”

He’d asked for them. When he’d seen Martin’s face, he’d actually recoiled a little, although Martin wasn’t sure what his face had looked like, although he had said that he wouldn’t let Jon smoke in the house, and he’d been _stern_, almost, and assertive, and he hadn’t meant to be like that, it wasn’t the sort of person he was – but maybe it was, now, maybe he was assertive, maybe he could be. He was trying to be.

“I don’t mind,” Jon says lowly. “I’ve been smoking too much the past few months anyway. More than I used to.”

“They’re appetite inhibitors,” Martin says. “Like chewing gum.”

“Yes,” Jon says. His tone is a little more tight, and he isn’t looking at Martin, but instead on some fixed point out over the drably green fields outside. Martin wonders what he’s looking at, who he’s looking at, if he’s looking at something other than damp grass and uneven fenceposts and a dank, grey sky. “My grandmother used to tell me that, too.”

“I was going to cook a chicken for dinner,” Martin says. “And potatoes, and carrots, and there’s… I got some, um, gravy. Bisto.”

Jon smiles at him. It’s drawn, and haggard, and it makes one of the scars on his cheek seem longer.

“You’re a good cook, Martin,” he says quietly. “You’ll have to tell me what to do, if you want things chopped a certain way.”

Mum used to tell him he was a good cook. Martin didn’t think that it was true – he just cooked things, and they tasted fine, but he wasn’t a chef or anything, and he wasn’t really that into recipe books, or interesting things. Tim had liked interesting things, Tim had cooked all this creative stuff, and Basira seemed to know how to cook everything, and Sasha had known all kinds of things about cuts of meat and wine and mushrooms and ingredients and… And Martin didn’t know any of all that.

Mum used to tell him he was a good cook because he was the one cooking, and she didn’t like that, but felt that she should say something, he supposed. Jon at least seemed like he meant it.

“Are you hungry now?” Martin asks, and he watches Jon’s face, watches the little twitch of his mouth, the hesitation. Martin is a good liar, because his mum was a good liar too, and he had to get good – Jon isn’t great. He’s fine, he’s decent, but he’s not _good_, not like Martin is.

The pause before he says, “I could eat,” is revealing in a way a “No” never could be.

“Jon,” Martin says.

“Martin,” Jon replies.

He’s already said thank you. He said thank you a hundred times, in his head, and then once they were alone together in the cottage, he’d actually said it out loud, and when Jon had turned his head away, Martin had grabbed him by both cheeks and made Jon look at him, and Jon hadn’t felt small then – he hadn’t looked small, or felt small, or fragile. He’d felt _gigantic_, like Martin was holding a star between his palms, and when Jon had reached up to loop his fingers around Martin’s wrist – and those were skinny, Jon’s fingers were long and skinny and scarred, whereas Martin’s fingers were shorter, plumper, _and scarred_ – Martin had felt his stomach drop out of his chest, expecting Jon to push his hand away, but he hadn’t.

He’d just squeezed, gently, and then pressed his cheek more tightly against Martin’s palm, and Martin had been so overwhelmed he’d felt like crying. “Thank you,” he’d said a second time. “For saving me.”

“Martin,” Jon had said, “it was just one favour for… I don’t know, a few hundred others.”

And Martin had laughed, a kind of giggly laugh he didn’t like that he actually did, and he’d made to pull away in case he was making Jon uncomfortable, but Jon had hung onto his wrist and kept his hand on Jon’s cheek as though—

Not as though. Because he wanted Martin to touch him, just like that, and so they’d sat down together on the dusty couch and Martin had just touched his face, just _touched_ it, just traced the scars there and the threat of shadow that hadn’t come true yet, and stroked Jon’s hair and traced his teeth and his bones through the skin, and he hadn’t _felt_ all that skinny, not really—

“Martin?” Jon asks again.

“We had a cat, when I was a little boy,” Martin says. “He never let me touch him, but when he got hit by a car, I went and I picked him up, because I needed to carry him home. He was already d— He was already dead, but he was still warm, and I think it was, um, fast.”

“Spock,” Jon says. “It was fast. The wheel snapped his spine, so he didn’t really feel it.”

Martin swallows, and he watches the guilt on Jon’s face as he turns his face away. “Yeah,” Martin says. They’ve been trying to keep things light, trying not to talk about hard things, but it’s hard, he thinks, because Jon is such a hard person, and Martin isn’t as soft as he used to be, as he used to want to be. “I didn’t realize how skinny he was until after I touched him. He was an old cat. They get skinny.”

Jon seems to understand where this is going, and he presses his lips together, but then tries a weak smile, tries to joke. “I’m not that old, Martin. You can touch me whenever you want.”

They’ve been trying to keep things light.

“Just— Basira will send the statements soon. As soon as the Archive isn’t a crime scene anymore, really.”

“I’m fine,” Jon says, and he smiles in a way that Martin supposes is supposed to be comforting. “Really.”

“Is it—” Martin starts, leaning forward, setting _The Coral Island_ aside, and then he stops, because he feels guilty, and weird, and… “Is it hard?” He asks anyway, because he’s meant to be not quite so soft, he’s meant to be harder, and that means being more assertive, and not just rolling over on anything, everything, that means…

“Is what hard, Martin?” Jon asks in a low voice.

“You’re _hungry_,” Martin says. “You look hungry. You look _thin_ – not as thin as Daisy, maybe, but thin, like you’re not eating properly. You tell me everything I cook here tastes good but I don’t really know if you even _taste_ it.”

“I do,” Jon says. “Your cooking’s nice, Martin. When I have the statements, I’ll be—”

“But the statements aren’t the same, are they?” Martin asks, demands, which is too hard, too assertive, but he can’t stop, the words flow out of him like they’re rushing to get off his tongue. “It’s more like the ghost of a meal, isn’t it? Or a snack, like it’s not something with enough substance? And two weeks have gone by and you haven’t even had _that_.”

There’s a long silence. This one is very guilty, Martin thinks, and Jon looks small in a way that has nothing to do with being the Archivist, or being skinny.

“Maybe we should go for a walk,” Martin suggests, trying to soften his voice.

“I don’t want to come across anyone by accident,” Jon murmurs.

“Because you’re hungry,” Martin says.

“Martin, I’m _always_ hungry,” Jon says exhaustedly, and then winces, like he’s just heard what he’s said and hates himself for it, and he stands to his feet. “I’m going to… I’m going to take a nap, I think. I’m… sorry. I know this is difficult for you, I don’t mean to—”

Martin doesn’t mean to lunge, per se. He isn’t really the sort of man that does _lunging_, he’s not really big in an athletic sense, and his mum used to describe him as _lumbering_, he’s not that fast, but he does lunge, now, and he shoves Jon up against one of the walls, covered over as it is with a blue wallpaper that must have been here before Daisy bought the place.

Jon’s head tips back against the wall, his jaw set, and he doesn’t even look surprised – had he seen it coming? Did he know it was coming, like Elias, like Magnus, always did?

“I’m sorry,” he says again. “I know this probably isn’t what you wanted.”

Martin stares at him. “What? You think that I didn’t, that I didn’t want for you to become the Archivist and have to be hungry all the time because you can’t— because you have to read statements, because taking them from real people is too traumatic for them, because— you think that’s what I don’t want?”

“I can’t imagine you wrote it down in your wish list, no,” Jon says. “But I just mean… Martin, I’m not very… Even before all this, people used to think that they wanted me, sometimes. And I’m not…”

“What, you think I’m disappointed?” Martin asks, surprised by how hard it hits him, like a punch to the gut. “I knew what you were like. You’re not disappointing. And I don’t mind that you don’t like se— that you don’t want… I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but out of the two of us, I’m not exactly the hot one.”

Jon’s head tilts, just slightly. “Aren’t you?” he asks.

It hurts, actually, because it feels like he’s making fun, except that Jon isn’t a good liar and he isn’t good at making fun either, so Martin knows that he isn’t, knows how genuine it is, but then that just hurts more, compounds the hurt and spreads in a layer of guilt like it’s jam between slices of bread.

“I could give you a statement,” Martin says.

“What?” Jon asks. “Don’t be _ridiculous_.” It’s the first time he actually starts to pull away from Martin’s grip, tries to struggle out from between his hands, but Martin holds him fast in place, and the Eye doesn’t exactly give its people super strength, does it? “Martin, even if I wanted to do that, even if I _wanted_ to hurt you like that, I already know—”

“Only stuff that happened to me after I joined the Archive,” Martin says. “Not from before.”

There’s a sort of sheen that appears in Jon’s eyes that makes a shiver run down Martin’s spine, but it’s only there for a second before he shakes his head, turning his face away and trying not to look at him.

“No,” Jon says. “No, I don’t… I already— I’ve taken _far_ too much from you, Martin, do you really think—”

“What have you taken off me?”

“What have I…?” Jon laughs, a sort of indignant, huffy sound, gasping.

“What, I’m such a stupid child now I can’t even decide who I like and who I want without you deciding—”

“That isn’t true! That isn’t what I’m saying at all, Martin, you’re being—”

“Oh, harmless Martin, he’s got this big crush, can’t possibly be because he can actually decide who and what he likes, obviously he’s just an idiot who—”

“I didn’t say you were an idiot! I just—”

“— must have been tricked into liking me, and is only staying out of guilt or something—”

“Well, are you? Because, Martin, I know I’m not exactly a catch, and—”

“Jon, you’re so _arrogant_, usually, and when you come across as all self-deprecating to someone who’s _really_ self-deprecating, it _sort_ of feels like you’re trying to steal my act. So. Stop.”

Jon stares at him, his mouth ajar. It’s not exactly keeping things light, but it’s closer, and Martin gives him a small, shyer smile than he means to. Jon laughs, in a small way, a tiny way, a breathless way.

“You don’t want to take live statements from strangers because it’s awful to just go up to somebody and rip things out of their head,” Martin says. “I get that. But I’m not some stranger, and I know what it’s like. You’re not ripping anything out, I just… I’m, you know. Feeding you.”

“Like your dead cat,” Jon says.

“Well, I haven’t fed Spock in decades, Jon. Frankly, it’d be weird if I did,” Martin says, and Jon actually laughs, properly, a little chuckle instead of a nose exhale and a huff, and this time his head falls forward so that his forehead touches Martin’s plushly cushioned sternum, his fingers brushing the side of Martin’s waist. “I don’t get why you think you’re so hideous. I mean. Not because of the monster thing, I get that, but that doesn’t bother me, I just mean, you know, you, as a person. You’re not that bad.”

“Martin, everyone we know thinks I’m a prick.”

“Well, yeah, you are a prick,” Martin says. “But people marry pricks all the time.” That’s a bit weird to say, isn’t it? That’s very forward. He’s made it awkward, talking about marriage, and he tries to make it less so by adding, “And date them, and kiss them, and find them attractive,” but he thinks he just makes it worse.

“I don’t like sex,” Jon says to Martin’s chest.

“I like to wank,” Martin says in the same tone, and then feels himself blush, as if someone’s just lit two matches in his cheeks. Jon slowly leans back, looking up at Martin with his eyebrows raised as highly as they’ll go, and Martin coughs. “I mean, that is, er, that is to say, that I like to— to… What I mean is…”

“Yes?” Jon asks, looking as though he’s trying not to laugh. Martin’s pretty sure his cheeks are glowing right now.

“It doesn’t bother me,” Martin says more seriously, trying to come off as genuine. “It’s not like I haven’t… You know, I’ve _had_ sex. But wanking is… It’s fine. I’d rather have you and not have sex then go have sex and leave you all alone.” Jon’s face shifts, and Martin says, “No, no, it isn’t just that. It’s not obligation. I… _like_ you. I _want_ you. For some reason, Jon, I _actually_ enjoy your company.”

“Really, why?” Jon says. “I don’t.”

“I know,” Martin murmurs. “But you’re… You’re _funny_, and I know that you’re acerbic, and sharp, but you do actually care underneath all that, way more than you like to admit. And I’ve always had a weakness for prematurely grey hair.”

Jon’s fingers spread over Martin’s chest, gently pressing on the flesh there. “I don’t deserve… you.”

“What do I do?” Martin asks. “It was when I was… when I was nineteen, I think. With the Hunt.”

The glint comes back into Jon’s eyes, but Martin can see him trying to hold it back, trying to keep himself reined in. He shakes his head, but Martin inhales slowly, keeps Jon framed in between his hands, and says, “I think it was the Hunt, anyway. I knew it wasn’t, um, that it wasn’t normal… I was working in Kwik Save at the time, back when there was still Kwik Saves about, and I’d been working there a year, got invited to a party. A lot of them were uni students, and I wanted to be impressive, you know, show them—”

“Martin,” Jon says, urgently, and Martin pulls him slowly back toward the sofa, trying to move slowly and deliberately. He all but drags Jon into his lap, and he can feel the warmth that radiates from him, can feel the way Jon stiffens slightly, looks at him. He doesn’t know why it’s so easy to touch Jon, but it’s easier than talking, somehow. “You hate— You don’t like it when I…”

“I don’t like hearing you read statements,” Martin says. “But because you get so… You get so _into_ them. The whole empathy thing. You don’t just read them, you experience them.”

“So why—”

“_Jon_,” Martin says. “Let me make a statement.”

He doesn’t know where the tape recorder comes from. It’s just there, whirring away on the coffee table and Jon says, lowly, “Statement of Martin Blackwood, regarding an encounter with a believed agent of the Hunt on the night of the 19th of July, 2010. Statement recorded the 13th of October, 2018.”

Jon licks his lips. Martin’s throat feels thick and full, a sort of nausea stirring in his gut – he doesn’t know why he’d never committed this one to tape. Because he wasn’t the real victim, he supposes, because he was just at the edge of it, but also because it always seemed… unrealistic.

“I’d been working at Kwik Save for nearly six months,” Martin says, and it feels different, somehow, the way that the words come out of his mouth, perhaps because of how intently Jon is focused on him, how unblinking his eyes are, all of a sudden. Elias used to look at Martin like that, sometimes, but that doesn’t matter now. “And I wanted… I wasn’t very popular at school, and it wasn’t that I was _un_popular at work, I just knew that I wasn’t… You know, people didn’t really want to hang out with me. I didn’t really have friends. I’ve never had friends.”

It’s too honest, but it flows out of him so easily – and it isn’t comfortable, exactly. It reminds him of being a kid, when he’d messed up trying to tie a piece of thread around a loose tooth and had swallowed a little ball of it, had had to pull it out of his throat bit by bit. It feels _inevitable_ to tell him this, sort of a relief, but not comfortable, not natural.

“So when Jonathan Radley, this guy who was working part-time, he was a student, invited me to a house party, I jumped at the chance. I knew it was just because he was inviting everyone else, that he probably didn’t care all that much about _me_ particularly, but it was a party, and I’d never been to a party before, not… not since I was a kid, and back then, people would only invite me because their parents made them invite everyone. But it was like… I don’t know, people were nice. They weren’t cruel or anything, I wasn’t even bullied that much at school, really – I was too big for that, I think. People didn’t want to say anything too bad because I was big enough to be bad back, even if I chose not to.

“It was busy. There was loud music playing, but I ended up in the kitchen, and this girl, her name was Anna, and her boyfriend had walked out on her. She sort of, um, I don’t know, adopted me? She kept grabbing me by the hand and leading me around, introducing me to people. I don’t know what it was she saw in me specifically, I think she just wanted someone to look after, and because I’m so broad and tall, if anyone came over, I could just stand in the way. We looked after each other.

“That was why I got as drunk as I was, I think. I didn’t mean to drink that much, because my mum was at home with my grandmother, and I was only going to be out for the night, but I didn’t want to be too hungover because I knew my mum would… She hated it when I got drunk. I think she was bitter about it.

“We did shots. I drank a lot of vodka, a lot more than I’d ever drunk before – I usually got drunk off, you know, cider and sours and cocktails that were more mixer than anything else, not spirits.

“And then this guy came in. He was… He was my height. Which is tall, right? That’s _tall_. He was tall, with really broad shoulders, muscular arms. A bit like Tim – he was a… He was a bodybuilder, I think. Handsome, too. He had dark hair, and this jaw that was, you know, when people say _chiselled_ I don’t always see it, but it did look chiselled, like someone’d made him out of marble and then painted him, and there was this cleft in his chin. He was… He was _hot_. Handsome, but handsome like a model, handsome like an actor. It was unreal, overexaggerated, like he couldn’t really be real – and I thought at the time it was just because I was drunk.

“He started talking to me. I was sat down, and he came in and I still remember the way his fingers felt when he touched my neck – he traced up from my throat up to my chin, and it was as though he… I don’t think I’d ever been as suddenly desperate for a man’s attention. It just felt _so_ good, to have him look at me – not even touch me, just look at me, just be in the spotlight. When he smiled, I felt like the world could end and I wouldn’t even notice.

“It was ridiculous! Stupid! As soon as I got home, later, it faded right out, I couldn’t understand why I’d been so into him. It was like he stopped being so intoxicating, when I wasn’t in his presence anymore. Pheromones, maybe.

“He started talking about… I don’t even know. I wasn’t really drunk anymore, all of a sudden, but he was still stroking my chin like I was a dog in his lap, like he didn’t… I remember he was talking about exercise. He was asking me what sort of exercise I did – he said I looked like a strong guy, asked if I’d done any sport, and I said that I had, that I’d played rugby at school, but that I didn’t like how rough it was. That I liked to walk in the countryside, that I liked to ride my bike, sometimes. He asked me how much I could carry, and it was…

“It was a bit like you, or Eli… Like Magnus. It didn’t feel like he was compelling me, exactly, just that before I even realised what I was doing, I was telling him that I could lift my mother up and carry her up and down the stairs, how much she weighed. He asked me how fast I could run. I told him I didn’t know, that I was more of a slower and steadier guy than a sprinter, you know?

“He asked me… He asked me what I’d scored on my last beep test, at school, and I told him I couldn’t remember, but that I’d been in the third to last level. He sort of… I remember the look he gave me. He kind of _pouted_, you know? Actually stuck out his lips and pouted a bit, and patted my chest as if he was consoling me.

“He said, “I suppose you’ll _do_,” he said. “Maybe you’ll surprise me.” But then Anna came over, and she was a track runner. She jogged 5k every day. You know, he went through the same interrogation with her, and the whole time he kept just… just stroking my chin, and I let him, it was… It felt _normal_.

“I fell asleep. I remember that, that I fell asleep, and when I woke up the party was still going, but I was nearly completely sober, or I felt it, anyway. I got a lift home with someone who was going the same way, but Anna, she was… She was gone.

“It was in the paper. It was in one of those freak stories, that she’d gone for her jog in the morning, but that she’d _sprinted_, that she’d… They found her out on the moor. She’d had a heart attack. Her clothes weren’t torn or anything, but she’d just run herself so fast, for so long, that her heart gave out.

“I remember his eyes. I used to dream about them, sometimes – they weren’t yellow or green or anything bright. They were a silvery blue, like shallow water in sunlight. I thought back on how it felt, once I started at the Archive. I didn’t remember it being frightening. It didn’t feel like he was going to do anything dreadful, or even… It didn’t even feel sexual, at the time. I didn’t even think about having sex with him – I just wanted to be close to him, and I wanted him to like me. To pick me.”

He looks at Jon’s face for the first time since he’d started, and he looks…

The bags have faded a little from under Jon’s eyes. His skin doesn’t look so pallid and chalky as it had before, and there’s a brighter light in his eyes, and even his lips seem less chapped. He looks… _healthier_. Not as thin.

Martin’s done this.

Martin’s made him… better. Healthier. He’s _nurtured_ him, and he looks…

This shouldn’t be quite as sexy as it is. It shouldn’t turn him on, he shouldn’t feel…

“End statement,” Jon says hoarsely.

Martin waits for the tape recorder to click off, and then hauls him closer by the front of his shirt, crushing their mouths together. Jon lets out a low noise, but when a sudden wave of guilt makes itself known, Jon opens his mouth wider and kisses Martin back. He’s a good kisser, better than Martin – he kisses like he doesn’t like being in charge of them, but like he enjoys them, and when they kiss, Martin is aware of how loud the noise is, the wet smack of their mouths—

When Jon pulls back, his eyes are heavily lidded, and h looks _blissful_ – Martin’s done that, too, Martin’s made Jon feel like this, Martin’s _taken care_ of him…

“Do you feel better?” Martin asks.

“Yes,” Jon says. “I didn’t… Why did you kiss me?”

“You look good,” Martin says. “Better.”

“Oh,” Jon says, looking relieved, and Martin drags him closer, bundling his legs up against Martin’s chest, so that he can hold all of Jon’s body in his arms at once. “I feel… I feel better. I should feel guilty, I suppose, but—"

“You need to eat,” Martin says.

“But you don’t have to be the one feeding me,” Jon says. “Except that you… I’m not imagining it, am I? You liked it.”

“I like taking care of people,” Martin says. “I like taking care of you.”

“This is a bit more direct than handfeeding me dog treats at the dinner table.”

“God, _how_ did you know I wanted to do that too?” Martin asks, and Jon laughs, breathlessly. Martin puts his fingers up and into Jon’s hair, running it through his fingers again. Jon’s hands come over Martin’s own, loosely gripping his wrists, guiding them up higher, to touch his scalp. “I like touching you. You… You come off as someone who isn’t used to being touched. I like being the one to touch you.”

“You can do whatever you want to me,” Jon says. “I trust you.”

It’s a hundred thousand miles away from the fantasies of Jon telling him he couldn’t touch, of being all stern and in command – it’s everything Martin never realised was _impossible_, back in the beginning, and yet somehow… “I— Are you _trying_ to make me hard?”

Jon grins at him, shows his teeth, tips his head back slightly, looks for a moment like he’s completely energised, and Martin laughs. He knows it won’t last. He knows he couldn’t see Jon like this all the time – he knows that it comes with nastiness, and horror, knows that most of the statements are horrible, traumatic, much worse than this one. He knows that would be the payment, for Jon to be like this.

But—

“Yeah,” Jon says, tone teasing. “Maybe a bit. What, got a problem?”

“Pretty big problem, actually.”

“Oh, is it big?” Jon furrows his brow down low, twisting his lips – it’s more _Carry On_ than seductive.

Martin laughs. “As if you’d _know_. As if you’d even have a frame of reference.”

“I’ve had sex! I’ve seen penises! Tell you what, Martin,” Jon adds, and he lowers his voice, “I’ve even _got_ one.”

“Is it in your desk drawer, next to your rib?”

“Yeah. Different box, though.” Martin’s never seen Jon smile so much – it’s still a tired smile, but he looks… _sated_. It’s nice. Martin likes it.

“I used to think you didn’t have a sense of humour.”

“That’s in the third box. Rib, sense of humour, penis. Ranked in order of importance.” Jon’s fingers trace down the inside of Martin’s wrists, and the sensation is ticklish, but not unpleasant. “I never used to have friends either.”

“I don’t want to make you uncomfortable,” Martin says. “With… Sex.”

“I’m not uncomfortable. I don’t mind that people have it, that they want it. I just don’t really like the idea of participating, but I don’t mind… I don’t mind teasing. If it doesn’t bother you.”

“It doesn’t bother me,” Martin murmurs, feeling his cheeks burn with a slight blush. “Sort of the opposite, actually. Do you still want to nap?”

“We could take that walk, if you want,” Jon says. “I feel a bit more up for it.”

“Yeah,” Martin says. “Me too, funny enough.”

Jon smiles, and he hesitates, but then turns his head, slowly, and presses his mouth to the inside of one of Martin’s wrists. His lips are surprisingly soft where they press against the pulse point there, and Martin’s mouth feels dry.

“Let’s take that walk,” Martin says, and Jon nods.

They hold hands. Martin’s never walked with someone and held hands with them before. He’s never even fantasied about it, never even dreamed of…

It’s nice.

It’s really nice.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading! Feel free to hit up [my ask on Tumblr.](http://patricianandclerk.tumblr.com/ask) Requests open.
> 
> I have a Magnus Archives discord! [Join here!](https://discord.gg/c9aZWDz)


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